I have a love-hate relationship with this time of the year. See, I love that I get a check. A present to myself, if you will, because I chronically overpay my taxes. Now to me it is a large amount, but when I figure out the dollars of interest I'm missing out on, it's in the range of $10-20 for the year so it's really not a big deal. I hate this time of year because my employer waits till the last possible second to send W2s out. It's January 30th and the mail person hasn't brought my W2 yet. And my under-achieving company is aiming to have them out by Feb 2nd when they are required to have them out. Then there is Schwab. Some bill passed this year gives them until Feb 15th to send out 1099s. But 2/15 is a Saturday so they really have until 2/17/09 to mail them. And they sent out an email that leads me to believe they will take every bit of extra time.
Why? I'm sure there aren't people caged up in cubicles working overtime to lick stamps and envelopes after having penned in the numbers. There must be programs for these things. And tax laws don't change *that* much year to year. Bleh.
I estimated my numbers by comparing last year's final pay check to last year's W2 and if I'm close, it will be a good year. I haven't estimated the dividends and interest but they won't amount to much.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
How Wealthy Are You?
Last time I checked, I was at 4.9% of the "desired net worth" figure in August. Today I am 6.1%. Not too bad..
If you want to check yours, head to this site.
If you want to check yours, head to this site.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Credit Scores
Haven't changed much. I guess that's a good thing. I would love to break the 800 threshold though.
748 - Equifax
757 - Transunion
789 - Experian
I gotta stop buying these things so often. I have the Equifax monitoring service ($90-ish per year) and I buy one score a month (alternating between TU and Exp). Cutting back to quarterly would only save me like $50 a year so I guess I'm not doing too badly..
748 - Equifax
757 - Transunion
789 - Experian
I gotta stop buying these things so often. I have the Equifax monitoring service ($90-ish per year) and I buy one score a month (alternating between TU and Exp). Cutting back to quarterly would only save me like $50 a year so I guess I'm not doing too badly..
Friday, January 2, 2009
2009 Goals
So here are my financial goals for next year.
1. Buy a house
Okie, not really financial but since it affects so many other things I thought I'd get that one out of the way.
2. Grow net worth by $5000.
That's half of 2008's growth. I decided on this goal because if I accomplish number one, my funds will be somewhat depleted if I have to pay closing costs and buy appliances. Secondly, and more importantly, my saving power will be diminished. I expect the mortgage principal and interest to be roughly equal to my rent but then there's property tax, increased insurance costs, water and garbage, and increased maintenance costs. Probably some stuff I'm forgetting. Oh yes, a new pet. I intend to get a dog when I'm no longer a renter. Additionally, I'm not counting on a raise this year nor huge gains in the market, although both would be lovely.
3. Establish a plan to generate some secondary income.
I would love to have a couple of hundred extra bucks a month coming in. I haven't yet decided how to go about this. I have 3 ideas and may combine as needed.
a - Concentrate on making more investments that throw bones my way. The simplest idea would be to buy mutual funds that have a goal of generating income and have low expenses. I like how ING savings is working for me but I don't really want to set a goal of increasing my fixed savings, you know? This would be the most feasible but also the least lucrative I think.
b - Sell soap. I'm very much enjoying this hobby and one of the consequences is producing much more soap than my family and I can use. Now is probably not a good time to enter the market since I don't think most people are spending their extra money on these things. This would be the most labor intensive but probably the best opportunity in the short term. Costs would be small as I already have the supplies I would need to start with and the real cost would be insurance and setting up some sort of business structure that limits my liability.
c - Rental property. This would be more of a long term idea since I'm more interested in my own home right now, unless I happened on a good duplex I could afford. But if this is something I really want to do, I can start saving up some down payment money now and start doing some reading on what it takes to be a landlord. This is probably the most lucrative over the long term but also takes a fair amount of work, I'm sure. I bet there are good months when the tenants behave and pay rent timely and nothing breaks, but there are sure to be vacancies and bad tenants eventually.
4. Pay off 20% of car loan.
Slight increase over this year.
5. Pay off 10% of student loan.
Again, a little increase over the current year. Probably a trickier goal since I tend not to pay much extra on this one. I used to when it was my only loan but now I'd rather have the car paid off and have padded savings.
There they are, my goals..
1. Buy a house
Okie, not really financial but since it affects so many other things I thought I'd get that one out of the way.
2. Grow net worth by $5000.
That's half of 2008's growth. I decided on this goal because if I accomplish number one, my funds will be somewhat depleted if I have to pay closing costs and buy appliances. Secondly, and more importantly, my saving power will be diminished. I expect the mortgage principal and interest to be roughly equal to my rent but then there's property tax, increased insurance costs, water and garbage, and increased maintenance costs. Probably some stuff I'm forgetting. Oh yes, a new pet. I intend to get a dog when I'm no longer a renter. Additionally, I'm not counting on a raise this year nor huge gains in the market, although both would be lovely.
3. Establish a plan to generate some secondary income.
I would love to have a couple of hundred extra bucks a month coming in. I haven't yet decided how to go about this. I have 3 ideas and may combine as needed.
a - Concentrate on making more investments that throw bones my way. The simplest idea would be to buy mutual funds that have a goal of generating income and have low expenses. I like how ING savings is working for me but I don't really want to set a goal of increasing my fixed savings, you know? This would be the most feasible but also the least lucrative I think.
b - Sell soap. I'm very much enjoying this hobby and one of the consequences is producing much more soap than my family and I can use. Now is probably not a good time to enter the market since I don't think most people are spending their extra money on these things. This would be the most labor intensive but probably the best opportunity in the short term. Costs would be small as I already have the supplies I would need to start with and the real cost would be insurance and setting up some sort of business structure that limits my liability.
c - Rental property. This would be more of a long term idea since I'm more interested in my own home right now, unless I happened on a good duplex I could afford. But if this is something I really want to do, I can start saving up some down payment money now and start doing some reading on what it takes to be a landlord. This is probably the most lucrative over the long term but also takes a fair amount of work, I'm sure. I bet there are good months when the tenants behave and pay rent timely and nothing breaks, but there are sure to be vacancies and bad tenants eventually.
4. Pay off 20% of car loan.
Slight increase over this year.
5. Pay off 10% of student loan.
Again, a little increase over the current year. Probably a trickier goal since I tend not to pay much extra on this one. I used to when it was my only loan but now I'd rather have the car paid off and have padded savings.
There they are, my goals..
Triumph
I felt a weird sense of triumph today as I reviewed my 401k performance for the year. Annualized rate of return for 2008 = -42%. Haha. Why am I happy? Because the market took a huge dump and it hasn't rattled me yet. In fact I bumped up my contribution rate today. The one wussy change I made was to mark 1% of my future contributions for the stable fund. I'm not moving any of my current investments but some of my reading has suggested that even young people should have a tiny bit of stability. Hm.. okay.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Monthly Update
Build emergency fund to 6 mo expenses - 100.8% (Up .4%) Yay! :)
No effort on my part as the gains came from the market activity and interest.
Pay off car loan - 18.1% (Up 1.6%)
Pay off student loan - 8.8% (Up .2%)
House down payment - 39.5% (Up 8.3%)
Another good month for me. I'm mulling over goals for the next year so I'll throw something up soon. Well, technically the goals are now for this year. Happy new year to anyone reading! I hope it brings good things to all!
No effort on my part as the gains came from the market activity and interest.
Pay off car loan - 18.1% (Up 1.6%)
Pay off student loan - 8.8% (Up .2%)
House down payment - 39.5% (Up 8.3%)
Another good month for me. I'm mulling over goals for the next year so I'll throw something up soon. Well, technically the goals are now for this year. Happy new year to anyone reading! I hope it brings good things to all!
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